


Leap

by kirana



Series: Supah Sekrit Christmas in July [6]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Christmas, Dreams, Futurefic, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirana/pseuds/kirana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dreams can tell you more than you think you know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toomuchplor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomuchplor/gifts).



         _Lex dreamt_.

        Snow. Dark.

        Sound, behind him. He turned. A reindeer, his antlers dusted with snow, walked towards him. Green eyes that felt familiar laughed at him and the reindeer dance around him playfully. He followed it as it turned away, but couldn't keep up. A final jump and the reindeer was gone.

        A nudge against his back sent him face first into the snow. He turned over to see Clark laughing at him, his antlers, like the reindeer's, dusted with snow.

         _Lex woke_.

***

        "Aw, Lex, don't you want to make a snowman with me?"

        Lex hid his face in his cup of coffee so he wouldn't cave to the pleading green eyes turned his way. "My time has already been booked," he said, striving for unconcern.

        "Lex! You promised no work!"

        Clark's outraged voice was music to his ears. He hid his smile in his cup again and said, "I told your mother I'd help her bake, Clark, but if you'd rather we reverted to children and missed out on the joy of baking, by all means, let's."

        Clark perked up, as Lex had known he would. "Baking? What'll you be making? You promise you'll let me lick the bowls, right?" A heavy-lidded stare warmed him more than the coffee did as Clark continued, "I _like_ licking."

        "What your mouth in your mother's house," Lex chided. "You won't be licking anything if she washes your mouth out with soap." Clark, predictably, made a face and eww noises and Lex took another sip of coffee.

        It really was amazing what a change had been wrought in Clark, he reflected. Oh, Superman could still pose and posture with the best of them, but Clark had relaxed enough that Lex was sometimes forced to wonder if Clark really was thirty and not thirteen or even, on one memorable occasion, three. A stable sex life worked wonders, it seemed, when applied to uptight superheroes.

        Of course, to _keep_ that sex life stable, Lex had to make a lot of tough choices between the hard-but-good way and the -easy-but-evil way. On the other hand, it also got _him_ a stable sex life with the perk of not having to watching his back, which made choosing the hard-but-good way a bit easier.

        "Leeeex, what're you making?" By Clark's whine, he'd already asked that question more than once. "If you don't tell me, I'll dump snow down your back!"

        "You already did," Lex reminded him.

        Clark grinned. "Oh, yeah, right. Well, I'll do it again, so telllll meeee."

        Lex gave a beleaguered sigh. "She said something about gingerbread. Happy?"

        "Woo-hoo! Gingerbread houses! Awright!"

        Lex watched Clark's so-called dance of happiness around the kitchen and decided it was time to make his escape. Clark usually settled down after breakfast. Most of the time. When he had to go to work.

        Lex sighed again and stood. He wondered if Martha had any earplugs in the house.

***

        The reindeer was circling him when he opened his eyes. He reached out and brushed a gentle finger along an antler and the reindeer responded by just as gently rubbing an antler against his cheek. He shivered. The snow was cold.

        A whuff of moist breath warmed his ear as a heavy head poked over his shoulder. A nudge to his cheek pushed his head to the side. He didn't know what was so special about this direction, but the reindeer kept pushing at him until he turned to face it full on.

        The reindeer came out from behind him and moved into the darkness, looking back at him. When he didn't move, the reindeer came back and walked around behind him.

        A push from its body set him to walking forward and Clark's fingers twined with his as he came out from behind him. Clark leaned over to nuzzle at his head and he shivered when some of the snow on his antlers fell on him.

***

        Lex grumbled and jammed a pillow over his head. He _knew_ Clark could sing, had heard him when Clark had thought himself alone. But anytime he thought someone—Lex—was listening, the notes started going to places he hadn't thought possible. Lex wasn't sure why—after all, as nice as Clark's _real_ singing was, it could hardly be termed _super_ -singing—but he dismally suspected it was yet another manifestation of Clark's reversion to childhood.

        He wished Clark would just buy a sports car and stop subjecting Lex's ears to what passed for his mid-life crisis.

        "Lex, time to get up!" Also, Clark was inhumanly—ha—cheerful in the morning. Lex contemplated bringing out the kryptonite chains again. "Only five days until Christmas and we've still got lots to do!"

        If by 'lots', Clark meant shutting up and letting Lex sleep, then he whole-heartedly agreed. Sadly, Lex didn't think he was that lucky.

***

        The reindeer look a little . . . wider than usual. Concerned, he touched its side gently. Its green eyes watched him calmly as he tried to see if anything was wrong.

        Then he felt it. A little flutter of motion against his fingertips and he smiled, relieved.

        Clark smiled back at him and laced their fingers together so they could both feel the evidence of a new life in the making.

***

        Lex crept through the empty house. He'd succeeded in getting Martha and Clark out of his way by pretending a need to take a nap while they joined the throng waiting to see the latest cinematic travesty purporting to be about the ' _true_ spirit of Christmas'.

        At least when Lex had been screwing people over, he hadn't pretended it was a _holiday_.

        He sat down at the computer and quickly brought it up. He opened a search page and paused. What he needed was a page about dreams. He typed in a query, then opened another window, this time looking for information n reindeer; something was bothering him about it, quite aside from it turning into Clark whenever he took his eyes off it.

        He took the first likely looking result for dreams and started search for the elements he remembered from his dreams. Snow. Reindeer. Antlers. Luckily, there was a pad of paper by the computer, allowing him to take notes as he went.

        He switched pages. Reindeer as spirit animals, as livelihoods, as legends.

        He tapped the pile of notes with the pen, frowning. He wasn't getting something. Something in the dreams was trying to get his attention. Something about the reindeer.

        He almost had it when Clark scared him.

        "Lex! You promised you wouldn't work!"

        Lex winced, the disappointment in Clark's voice cutting him tot he bone. He turned swiftly and grabbed at Clark's hands, holding them when Clark glared at him and tried to pull away. He could have done it easily, Lex knew, which gave him hope Clark would listen to him.

        "Clark," he started, then stopped. "This isn't work. It isn't!" he insisted in the face of Clark's disbelieving snort. "Really, Clark, what possible connection to my work would reindeers have?"

        "Maybe you're planning something for Christmas," Clark muttered, unmollified.

        Lex sighed loudly. "And if I were," he said, "I certainly wouldn't be leaving it to the last minute like this."

        Clark processed that. "Then what _are_ you doing?" he asked finally, a hint of curiousity in his voice.

        Lex changed his grip on Clark's hands, opting for a less secure, but more intimate, hold. "I've been having a strange dream," he began. "The past week or so, I've been dreaming about a reindeer. there's snow and the reindeer seems to be rather fond of me. And then he turns into you or maybe he runs off ahead of me or . . . ." He shook his head, frustrated anew over the incomprehensibility of the dream. "last night," he said with a short laugh, "he even looked like he was pregnant." He waved at the computer and associated notes. "I was doing some research into the dreams because, frankly, they were starting to annoy me." He shook his head. "I haven't been able to figure out much yet. Each element of the dreams seems to mean something only if it means that in your cultural knowledge. Not a lot of help for dream interpretation."

        Clark didn't say anything. In fact, Clark hadn't said anything since he'd started stroking Clark's palms with his fingertips. He hastily stopped and changed his grip again. He'd thought Clark had grown out of his teenage hormone-induced perpetual horniness, but one never knew with an alien lover.

        "Clark?" he ventured when even that brought no reaction. And then he blinked and when he opened his eyes, Clark was gone, the warmth of his hands fading slowly.

        Lex took in a startled breath. Clark hadn't done something like that in a while. But before Lex could try to figure out what he'd said to set him off, Clark was back in front of him, nervously holding a wrapped present with an envelope attached to it.

        "here," Clark said, abruptly offering the gift to Lex. The bald man took it automatically. "It—it's your Christmas gift, Lex. One of them, anyway." Clark paused. "Well, go on! Open it!"

        Lex blinked and turned his attention properly to the gift in his hands. He thought about making a comment about how it was still four days until Christmas, but Clark didn't exactly look to be in a light-hearted mood. In fact, he looked downright nervous, something that didn't make Lex feel good about opening the gift in the first place. He opted for the envelope first. Hopefully, it would give him some clue as to how worried he should be about the gift.

        He was sliding his finger under the envelope's flap when Clark suddenly spoke up. "You know what's strange about reindeer?" he asked in an apparent non sequitur. "the males only have antlers in the summer. It's only the females that have horns in the winter." He gave a dry chuckle. "Kinda puts a different spin on Santa and his reindeers, huh?"

        Well, yes, Lex knew that. His father had actually gone over "A Visit From St Nicholas" with him one year, taking great pains to point out all the unrealities within it and the segueing to the more popular Christmas entertainments. He could still remember the look on his father's face when he'd asked if that meant Rudolph was gay. His father had quickly recovered and pointed out that Selene was really a very effeminate name for a male reindeer.

        he pulled the card out of the envelope and . . . stared at it.

         _Congratulations_! it proclaimed with suspiciously pastel colours.

        "If-if Kryptonians had antlers," Clark said quietly as Lex opened the card, "I think I'd be one of the ones with them during winter."

         _On the Happy Occasion_!

        Clark had taken pains with the card, he could see. His nerves had been translated into sketches of baby booties and alphabet blocks.

        "Lex?" Clark asked tentatively. "I didn't mean to keep it a secret, it's just that I only found out last time I went to the Fortress and then I thought Christmas would be a good time to tell you, except you started having these dreams and, and I think that's what your dreams mean."

        "You're— _pregnant_?!" Lex croaked out.

        Clark fidgeted. "Um . . . yes?"

        Lex looked at the card open in his hands and put it down carefully before finding the edge of the wrapping paper.

        "Lex?"

        There was a box under the paper and he lifted its lid. And then he reached in and lifted out what was obviously a baby blanket, one that explained the balls of inexplicably yellow yarn around the house.

        He laid it back in the box and finally looked up at Clark.

        "Are you okay?" he asked.

        Clark's forehead creased. "uh, yeah," he answered. "The AI gave me a clean bill of health." he winced. "For being, y'know, the Last _Pregnant_ Son of Krypton. Are _you_ okay?"

        No, not really, but he didn't want to have to tell Clark that. He just . . . needed to get used to the idea, that was all. "Ill be okay," he murmured, then glanced up again. "Just . . . . Really? Pregnant?"

        Clark began to lose the pinched look of worry about him until, finally, he was smiling. "Yeah," he said softly. "Really."

        "Okay." he'd have to make some changes, of course. He didn't want his father getting his claws in any child of _his_. Maybe it would be better to claim Clark was the father? he'd need more information from the AI, _that_ he knew for sure. How long was an average Kryptonian pregnancy and all that.

        Which brought another thought to the fore. "Is—will it be all right?" he asked.

        Clark nodded. "I asked the AI about that right after I finished freaking out," he confirmed. "The AI did a scan and mapped out the baby's DNA. He won't be a full Kryptonian, of course, but it looks like our species are similar enough for, um, breeding purposes."

        "He? We're going to have a son?"

        Clark rubbed at his nose, suspiciously bright-eyed. "Yeah," he said. "I don't know if I'd've wanted to know right away, but the AI kinda just blurted it out." Lex was aware of Clark studying him for a moment. "Come upstairs," Clark finally said softly. "We can take a bit of a nap and then we can talk about it after, okay? C'mon, up we get."

        He let Clark pull him upright and then up the stairs. A nap was probably a good idea, let everything get settled in his brain a bit so he could think coherently about it. He allowed Clark to arrange him to his liking, closed his eyes, and dropped off.

***

        The snow was not cold against his bare feet. He ran his toe through a drift and bit off a chuckle. Not cold, but definitely fluffy.

        The reindeer laughed soundlessly at him, but he ignored him in favour of watching his fawn kick up the snow.

        The fawn shook his head as the snow drifted down to cover his head and Lex knelt, beckoning. The faun skipped trustingly to him and Lex reached forward.

        He found his hands deep in tousled curls, feeling the barely-there antler nubs hidden within. He looked up and found Clark smiling at him.

        He smiled back as he hugged his son. A family. _His_ family. It was a dream he was going to work hard to make a reality.


End file.
